Made in the USA: American tech inventions
The IBM 350 is widely considered to be the very first computer with a hard disk drive. Model 1 was announced on September 4, 1956. The data processing machine was used mainly for recording transactions for businesses.
IBM is an American technology company that was incorporated in New York on June 16, 1911 as the Computing- Tabulating- Recording Company (C-T-R). The company changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation on February 14, 1924.
Source: IBM
Global positioning systems (GPS)
Global positioning systems (GPS) technology can be seen in today's smartphone maps, GPS devices and location-based services.
This complex technology took decades to perfect and underwent several steps in its eventual invention. Ivan Getting, Roger Easton and Bradford Parkinson are generally credited for inventing the first global positioning systems (GPS), as we know it.
Getting filed patent number 2,709,773 on October 19, 1945 for a "remote control system with potion indicating means." The invention was meant to "provide means for utilizing a radar set to transmit information to an aircraft as well as simultaneously to indicate the position thereof," Getting wrote in his patent application."
On October 8, 1970, Easton filed for a patent that "allows the navigator to passively determine his position by measuring the distance, or range, to one or more satellites."
Parkinson, who was the first program director of NAVSTAR, moved the technology forward and developed a navigational system that could determine a user's location with great precision. According to Parkinson's June 7, 1995 patent application, "the position receiver generates precision determinations to within centimeters of the exact location."
Sources: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, National Inventors Hall of Fame
Microprocessor
The first microprocessor was the Intel 4004, which was designed for the Busicom 141-PF printing calculator. The processor was about the size of a fingernail, held 2,300 transistors and was produced on two-inch wafers.
Shown here is the blueprint for the Intel 4004 microprocessor.
The Intel 4004 was introduced in the November 15, 1971 issue of technology publication Electronic News.
Source: Intel
Typewriter and QWERTY keyboard layout
Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule are considered to have invented the first practical typewriter and QWERTY keyboard layout, which is still widely used today.
The Milwaukee, Wis. residents were granted patent number 79,265 by the U.S. Patent Office on June 23, 1868 for inventing "new and useful Improvements[sic] in Type-Writing Machines."
It's widely believed that Sholes rearranged the keyboard layer to prevent frequently used keys from jamming.
Sources: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, National Inventors Hall of Fame
Personal computer
The origin of personal computers is widely credited to the U.S. Army, with the invention of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC). The ENIAC is considered the world's first "general purpose, electronic digital computer."
The ENIAC was announced to the world on February 14, 1946. John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, Jr. are credited for inventing the ENIAC, which was used to run ballistic calculations for the World War II. The two invented the machine while taking a course called "Engineering, Science, Management War Training (ESMWT), funded by the U.S. Army at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School.
Sources: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, University of Pennsylvania, U.S. Army
The Internet
Legend has it that the Internet was born in a memo written by the head of Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) - Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider on April 23,1963. (ARPA would later be renamed DARPA, with the addition of the word "Defense.") That note, outlined a radical restructuring of the organization's database management, which would later be called ARPANET.
In 1974, after a series of technological developments that built the foundation of the Internet, Vinton Cerf and Robert Khan - working for ARPA - published a paper titled "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection." For the first time, the architecture of the Internet was constructed.
The two men described a network called the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). In March 1982, the U.S. Department of Defense declared that agency would switch to TCP/IP.
On January 1, 1983, ARPANET switched to TCP/IP. And the rest is history.
Source: DARPA
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit is a set of miniature electronic circuits, including transistors, diodes, resistors and capacitors, built onto a semiconductor material. It is considered to be an essential building block for the modern microprocessor.
Jack Kilby of Texas Instrument and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation filed for independent patents within months of each other.
Shown is a photo of Kilby's first integrated circuit, which was unveiled to fellow Texas Instrument engineers in 1958.
Kilby filed for patent number 3,138,743 on February 6, 1959 for a miniaturized electronic circuits in Dallas, Texas. Noyce filed for patent number 2,981,877 on July 30, 1959 in Mountain View, Calif. for a semiconductor device-and-lead structure. Ultimately, the first patent was awarded to Noyce on April 25, 1961.
Noyce went on to co-found Intel Corporation in 1968 and Kilby won a Nobel Prize in physics in 2000 "for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit."
Sources: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, National Inventors Hall of Fame, Intel, Texas Instrument
Hypertext
Douglas Engelbart invented the first computer mouse and graphical user interface (GUI) in the 1960s, while working at the Stanford Research Institute on a U.S. Department of Defense grant.
Engelbart also developed the oN-Line System (NLS), which was the first practical use of hypertext, which is text on a computer that links to more content. "Link" is most common word used to describe hypertext.
Sources: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, National Inventors Hall of Fame
Video game console
The first video game console created for consumers was the Magnavox Odyssey. The concept was conceived in 1966 by Ralph H. Baer while working as a chief engineer at Sanders and Associates in New Hampshire.
Magnavox Odyssey went on sale in its completed form in 1972.
Today, it's estimated that about 56 percent of American households has at least one video game console.
Sources: Ralph H. Baer, Nielsen
Transistor
It's widely believed that the transistor is the building block for all modern electronics. And without it, we would not have the foundation for microchips and computers.
John Bardeen, William B. Shockley and Walter Brattain was granted patent number 2,502,488 by the U.S. Patent Office on April 4, 1950 for an invention that "related to means for and methods of translating or controlling electrical signals."
And patent number 2,524,035 on October 3, 1950 for an invention that translated "electrical variations" for the purposes of amplification and wave generation.
The three physicists won a Nobel Prize in 1956 for "their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect."
Sources: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, National Inventors Hall of Fame
Wireless local area network
Norman Abramson invented the first wireless local area network (WLAN) while working as a professor at the University of Hawaii.
ALOHANET was a "packet broadcasting radio network" that was fully operational in 1970. For the first time, computers could communicate with each other without wires.
Wireless computing as we know it today is dependent on Wi-Fi, which is a type of WLAN that adheres to the Institute of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) 802.11 standards.
Sources: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, University of Hawaii
Mobile phone
The first mobile telephone call was placed on June 17, 1946 from a car. The team behind the St. Louis, Mo. history-making call was Alton Dickieson and D. Mitchell from Bell Labs and H.I. Romnes, who would later become CEO of AT&T.
According to the trade group CTIA, there were 331.6 million wireless subscribers in the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands by December 2011.
Sources: AT&T, CTIA, U.S. Census Bureau
Digital camera
The first digital camera was invented by Eastman Kodak Company in 1975.
The prototype, designed by Kodak engineer Steven Sasson, took black-and-white photos at a resolution of .01 megapixels.
In an ironic twist of fate, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2012. Many industry pundits have speculated that Kodak has struggled with competing in the digital camera market.
Sources: Eastman Kodak Company, The Visual Dictionary of Photography by David Prakel
Computer mouse, graphical user interface (GUI)
Douglas Engelbart invented the first computer mouse and graphical user interface (GUI) in the 1960s, while working at the Stanford Research Institute on a U.S. Department of Defense grant. Before the mouse was invented, users had to type in text commands to manage computers. The Portland, Ore. native wanted to users to be able to interact directly with computer screens.
"We had a big heavy tracking ball, it was like a cannonball. We had several gadgets that ended up with pivots you could move around. We had a light panel you had to hold up right next to the screen so the computer could see it. And a joystick that you wiggle around to try to steer things," Engelbart told the BBC in 2001.
Engelbart filed for patent number 3,541,541 on June 21, 1967 for a "X-Y position indicator for a display system." To accompany his mouse, Engelbart developed the oN-Line System (NLS), which was the first practical use of hypertext -text on a computer that links to other text.
Some of the most famous examples of GUI in tech history include the first Apple and Microsoft operating systems, which were famously lifted from Xerox. Instead of text, graphics like icons and windows were used to navigate a computer.
Sources: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, National Inventors Hall of Fame
Floppy disk
The IBM 23FD is widely considered the first floppy disk. Designed to load microcode into an IBM 3330 data storage unit. The design team was lead by David Noble.
The floppy disk changed computing because it was a portable storage medium, unlike hard drives.
Source: Computer History Museum
Although there are several ways messages are transmitted electronically, the first email system as we know it was built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) was software that came out of Project Mac - founded by Fernando J. Corbato and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
CTSS was first demonstrated at the MIT Computational Center in November 1961.
Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Operating system
It's widely believed that the very first operating system was the GM-NAA I/O, which was installed on the IBM 704 computer.
An operating system is software that is installed on a computer and gives the hardware directions for operation. Today, the most famous operating systems are Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X.
The first operating system was created by a joint effort from Robert Patrick of General Motors Research Laboratories and Owen Mock of North American Aviation in 1956.
Sources: Computer History Museum
